Ogilvy Earth: Green Branding or Green Washing? PT.3

My conclusion about Ogilvy Earth: Are they a true, transperant, thoughtleading green brand agency or run-of-the-mill-being-green-for-better-PR green washing extroidinars? Well neither and a little of both at the same time. While I would never call Ogilvy Earth "sustainable thought leaders" I do think that they are on their way to becoming a decent green branding agency.

They need to pick up some tougher clients, ones that would surprise me with a reinvented sustainable ground work. They should tackle someone tougher, how about Kraft,  Frito-Lay, Johnson and Johnson or Crest? Ogilvy Earth is in a position to take on big non-green clients that small agencies would never be able to touch. They need to work on not just making brands look "more sustainable" but changing the way brands do business to make their practices sustainable.    

Ogilvy Earth also needs to work on becoming more transparent and relevant to the audience that will be the most critical of its green agency claims, gen-y college students and young professionals. They need to steer away from the business jargon and explain, in layman's terms, the tactics they are using  and how they are effective. I know when I see a buzz-word packed proclamation about how great their "Eco Audits" are, I immediately tune out and suspect them for trying to hide behind their sweet-sounding but little meaning words.

But they are doing some good things, and with the power (and $$$) that Ogilvy has, they are in a position to pave the way for other monolith agencies. So here's to you Ogilvy Earth for trying. I am sure to clients trying to "go green" you seem like a good choice but if you want to be believable to us, your audience, you need to take it to the next level.

Ogilvy Earth: Green Branding or Green Washing? PT.2

On to part 2 of my Ogilvy Earth examination. Although looking at their clients gave me some good insight into how Ogilvy Earth is operating, I think that its even more important to examine their tactics. Their tactics or "capabilities" as they refer to them are listed on the Ogilvy Earth site here.

They consist of an Eco Audit, Landscape Audit, The Lab, Earth-View Software, the Three Pillars Employee Survey and IQ Mapping. I would like to take a deeper look and see what all these fancy words really mean and delve further into Ogilvy Earth to answer my question of "Green branding or green washing?"

Eco Audit:  "Collects, analyzes and synthesizes perspectives on sustainability goals, possibilities and realities, according to key stakeholders within the participating brand."

They do this by conducting interviews that (hopefully) "leads to key insights and ideas that already exist in a company’s operations and culture."

Well I guess interviews are a good start and a good way to get a feeling for how the company already thinks. I dont really see how this audit is "eco" other than it gives Ogilvy Earth an idea of what the company thinks about "sustainability." But how effective is this if the "key stakeholders" don't know jack shit about sustainability? How does Ogilvy Earth tell them that their goals are misguided if they are?

Landscape Audit: "By analyzing both online and offline news, information and cultural cues, we create a snapshot of sustainability as it relates to a particular industry or niche."

So this one seems pretty similar to the Eco Audit,  but I don't really understand how this is effective for green branding. What if the "snapshot of sustainability" shows them that no one in that particular industry is addressing "sustainability?"  What then? And aren't we really talking about reinvention to make your brand more sustainable. Who cares what your competitors or journalists are saying about "sustainabilty in your industry" I think this one is misguided because brands need to focus inward to be sustainable and not get their ideas of "sustainability" from others in their industry or journalists. How about scinetists instead?

The Lab: this one sounds creepy and awesome but what is The Lab? Ogivly Earth's website says "A living library of the world’s greatest thinkers on sustainability. Full-day Lab immersions include client and agency access to members of the Lab for workshops focused on defining a sustainability vision, a messaging platform, new product development, potential partnerships, packaging ideas and more."

this one sounds cool and in-line with green branding. Education of clients is vital in this process if they really want to reinvent their brand and "sustainablize" it. I would, however, like to see who are Ogilvy's "greatest thinkers on sustainability" though. A little more transperancy on this one would be good.

Earth-View software: "State-of-the-art technology offering a radar-style map that allows users to self-assess their current position in sustainability, for a visual presentation of a gap analysis."

that description is just too damned filled with agency jargon for me to make out what this really is. I  assume its a visual representation of the Landscape Audit-showing where the client is in relation to other brands in term of sustainability. If that is the case, I have the same criticisms for this as the Landscape Audit, but I bet it looks really cool.

Three Pillars Survey: "A sophisticated tool used to engage the organization’s employees around the economic, social and environmental actions and reputation of a business."

This capability also seems to be on the right track by identifying how the employees of the client view them. Again a good starting point to reinvent a brand and a way for the "suits" to find out about how their employees think. I do question how honest and unbiased this is though. I mean I wouldn't bad mouth the company that pays my bills too much. Again, what if the employees of said company dont know anything about sustainability and environmental issues? I think this needs to be paired with some employee education to be effective.

IQ Mapping: "A technique with both quantitative and qualitative benefits that helps identify key influencers who can make or break a client’s entry into the sustainability conversation particular to a brand’s category or industry."

Basically introducing a client to the thought leaders in their industry. Cool.  But this sounds a bit like PR spinning to me. I think a client's "make or break into the sustainability conversation" depends more on their business practices (and how sustainable they actually are) then who they know in the industry.

With this I've finished my examination of Ogilvy Earth and I feel I have a pretty good idea of where they stand as a green branding agency. I may have been a bit harsh in my criticism but standing up to harsh criticism is what a client (an agency) has to do if they want to make it in the "sustainable" business world.

See part 3 for my final conclusions!

Ogilvy Earth: Green branding or Green washing? PT.1

I love to see large multi-national advertising agencies getting involved in green branding. I really do. But sometimes I am skeptical of their intentions. Are they just hopping on the green wagon or are they really trying to change things for the better. In order to answer my question, I decided to look at OgilvyEarth and examine their green branding strategies.

First I looked at their clients:

Environmental Defense Fund: OgilvyEarth did a campaign to help raise awareness about the correlation between driving and global warming. They promoted the idea of "ride don't Drive" with inflating polar bears placed around new york. A pretty cool guerrilla marketing idea but did it really promote sustainability? They also ran PSAs that directed people to the Environmental Defense Fund's website fightglobalwarming.com.

I think that this campaign was too easy and doesn't show that OgilvyEarth are really thought leaders. It is grossly unoriginal (oh Polar bears and global warming, that's never been done before) and it was preaching to the choir a bit. Although it did win a bunch of rewards, did it really cut down on driving?

Qantas Air: A little bit more challenging company to "green up". OgilvyEarth instituted a "be green" sustainability program that helped Qantas employees to take "localized action" on environmental issues they found pressing.  This campaign was interesting because it focused mostly on Qantas Air employees "greening" up to meet "reduction targets" to help reduce Qantas' environmental impact. This is a kinda cool approach and hopefully encouraged employees to green up their own lives outside of work.

Tetra Pak: Another client that seems a bit too easy. OgilvyEarth ran a campaign to educate TetraPak's audience on how their product is "more Sustainable" than other packaging companies. Yes Tetra Pak is better for the environment, and arguably a good green product, but this campaign begs the question, "can any packaging company call themselves sustainable?" Are consumers of Tetra Pak really doing something "something positive for the planet?" or just something less negative?

Du pont: Alright, cool OgilvyEarth I am with you taking on this one. Du Pont was already doing "sustainable" building practices though, and they were already working in Greensburg befor Ogilvy stepped in. Ogilvy brought much needed awareness to Du Pont but again, this client is too easy.

In summary, I think that while OgilvyEarth has done some good things for already "green" clients, what it really needs to do is to take on clients that aren't already "green". It has the power as a large agency to step in and start changing how companies do business to better address environmental issues. I wont know where OgilvyEarth's intentions lie, whether they are in the business of making Ogilvy look good or whether they are passionately trying to chnage things for the better, until they start taking some risks and changing how some not so environmentally friendly companies do business.

I will continue this examination in PT.2 with a look at OgilvyEarth's tactics.